Time to Speak Up for a Strong Plan and Great Idea: Protect Our City’s Riverfront Vision for Healthy Growth, and Reject the 600 Main Street SE Development

By Cordelia Pierson

Bad ideas can be like bad dreams: even after you calmly address and dismiss them, surprise – they come back.  The City of Minneapolis and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board thoughtfully plan so that good ideas provide clear guidelines, encouraging proposals that create a better city for us all.  This clarity ensures that we are not distracted by ideas that conflict with our vision for healthy growth.  And when bad ideas do come forward, our city leaders should act quickly to stop them.

For our nationally significant Mississippi riverfront, the City and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board approved clear plans for growth, encouraging residential development adjacent to riverfront parks while identifying specific properties to protect as parkland to support those new residents.  The Central Mississippi Riverfront Regional Park Master Plan was built with extensive community engagement and approved by the Metropolitan Council, and the 2040 Plan for Minneapolis honored that riverfront development pattern as well. 

One of the few properties selected for regional park protection and guided for park is 600 Main Street SE. A triangular one-acre parcel, it lies between Main Street SE and the riverfront, with Sixth Avenue SE bordering one side, and on the other, the Stone Arch Bridge’s former rail alignment, which connected Minneapolis with St. Paul.   People walking on the Stone Arch Bridge from the Mill District to the East Bank see this property – now used as a parking lot – before even glimpsing Father Hennepin Bluffs Park on the left. 

And so – here we go again, with a new development proposal in the works for 600 Main Street Southeast, after city leaders denied a similar project in 2009.  This time, the developer is asking to amend the 2040 Comp Plan to change the future land use from park to urban neighborhood, and amend the built form guidance from park to Corridor 6.  There is absolutely no question now that leaders have a clear plan to follow: defend the long-term vision of protecting this land, and deny this bad idea, once again.  

We can remind our leaders:

Honor official plans for growth and quality of life: The City’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan encouraged growth that protects our environment and health, including the Mississippi River and parks, and was approved by many jurisdictions following substantial public engagement. This plan clearly identified areas to increase development and the parkland needed to serve that development, referencing Metropolitan Council-approved regional parks such as the Central Mississippi Riverfront Regional Park Plan.  This parcel - 600 Main Street SE – is one of the precious few sites that was clearly selected for future park use in MPRB and regional plans.  It would be an addition to the Regional Park System, within the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area and Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service. The developer’s proposed 2040 Plan amendments and land use are inconsistent with the city's Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area ordinance and the regional park plan.

Find no grounds for amending the comprehensive plan for one parcel: Since the 2040 Comprehensive Plan was approved, nothing about this site has changed to warrant the extensive reviews by Minneapolis, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, Metropolitan Council Parks and Open Space Commission and other affected jurisdictions that are required for comprehensive plan amendment.  This proposed amendment would impede protection of the regional park, and would not conform, or be consistent or compatible with the 2040 Plan.

Honor the long-standing, well-recognized boundary of Main Street SE between residential development and protected riverfront: Protection of 600 Main Street SE respects long-standing city design of protecting land next to our river and lakes with a clear boundary: a parkway or street, like SE Main Street, West River Parkway, and the Grand Rounds.  That city design in the Central Riverfront was reflected in city, park, and neighborhood plans before the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.  Since 1999, MHNA’s policy has been that any land south of Main Street along the river should be reserved only for river-related recreation.  

Respect consistent opposition: Opposition to development in 2009 was fierce, and is not likely to have changed.  Many organizations quickly acted to renew their opposition - Friends of the Mississippi River, the Sierra Club – and other reactions are pending.  Opposition in 2009:

·         The University of Minnesota: The U of M does not want incompatible residential expansion next to its industrial steam plant, potentially exacerbating conflicting uses. 

·         The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board: MPRB urged denial of rezoning because the land is within the regional park and would contribute to the regional park if acquired.

·         The National Park Service: Development conflicts with recognized parks and trails goals of creating a gateway to the nationally significant Stone Arch Bridge and completing a continuous trail and open space corridor along both sides of the Mississippi River through the 72-mile length of the national park. 

·         Department of Natural Resources: The DNR opposed it as inconsistent with the Mississippi River Critical Area standards.

·         The Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Organization: MHNA opposes private development in the public realm along the Mississippi River, particularly in this environmentally sensitive, historic area.  

Join me in encouraging our city officials to follow these approved plans, deny this project, and protect our vision for a healthy future for our Mississippi riverfront city.

Cordelia Pierson, former Citizen Advisory Committee member, Central Mississippi Regional Park Master Plan; former Regional Commissioner, Mississippi River Parkway Commission; volunteer leader, Father Hennepin Bluff Stewards, Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association

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Editors Note: Council Member Rainville's office has asked for community feeback on this project, please email him at ward3@minneapolismn.gov